Poetry: Hawk

This is a direct message to a certain individual. I've written about you a few times, you know my words yet rarely my intent. I'll call you the man in the blue jeans so that perhaps you'll realize. I don't know if you'll ever read this... you are a hawk and I a mouse and dusk has fallen so you'll rest your eyes and seek new prey with the new dawn. It is not likely that you will seek me again. I remember well our time together. I pampered your feathers and measured your talons. Can you tell me apart from any other mouse? If you were flying 100 miles high in the sky, looking down on the world as is your normal to find fresh prey and your eyes glazed over me, would you know me as the mouse that you hunted and failed to capture? I would know you instantly.

You left a scar with your passing. I thought it would be near my heart but I was wrong. It is on my feet. And the weight of my burden is carried by it with each step that I take. A bit more fitting for our situation, perhaps. To look for guidance and find apathetic solitude, when challenged to be seen with eyes that did not know nor understand.

You always did confuse the two. Do you have to understand the science of the skies to know that the moon affects the tides? Do you have to understand the mysteries of a woman to know your feelings about one? Do you have to understand the affects of poison ivy to know to leave it alone? Did you really have to try to dissect me to know who I was? My emotions and thoughts cannot be traced on the carcass that I'll leave behind. I never wanted to be understood. I really don't think that you understood that. You don't have to understand God to know... so why couldn't you think similarly with me?

You never wanted to learn; you wanted to know. Instead of watching us mice dance in the grass, you had to pick isolated me up and peck at my fur, believing that seeing me bleed would help you understand. You would take my blood and put it in a dish and look at it so close that I couldn't believe that it belonged to me. You would take your findings and make a box, thinking that it'd be my shape. And you'd try to fit me in the box but I wouldn't fit. So you'd repeat the process, pulling at my hair; filing my nails; chopping my tail, wondering why your process wasn't working.

I created a mannequin and gave you grass instead of hair; water instead of blood; wood instead of my tail. And your box was close enough to the mannequin to satisfy your thirst. But the mannequin couldn't squeak and couldn't dance.

Everything but what was important. No cheese for the one who can't see.

And I was mocked for not being mouse enough by those you knew and you listened. Picked me up one last time to drop me on the hard ground far away from the fields I called my own and left. I play and dance in a different field now and I don't think you understand why. But then again, I never thought that you understood anything.

I lack all religious vigor that I used to possess and a root cause would have to be the Christian hospitality that I was given. Once upon a time, this would have bothered me but it is a needle in my feet and the constant ache has numbed and I walk forward without feeling the ground beneath me. I no longer care. You are a hawk and your purpose was to understand mice well enough to get more quick meals out of us. And I am a mouse who deceived you and became injured in the process. I won't know you again, my failed science project. I hear talk that you found a new mouse with glossy fur and willingly gives you her blood and fur. Maybe one day you'll devour her up. It's not my problem what other mice choose to do.

I am in a cage of my own design and liking: pampered, proud, and owned. I have a dragon and he owns me entirely-- letting me experience his skies and seas. A master of this world who licks my aching feet without knowing of their pain. Brushing my fur in his teeth, a rodent could not feel more clean nor content. I dance on his spine and he knows my movements well, bringing me sweet nectar to nourish our bond and feed our energy.

I am saying, hawk, you are a mere memory, fading more and more each day along with the things that you took from my life. Keep flying high. No matter how high you go, I will never be in view. All commonalities we once shared are erased. I. Am. Me.